View full sizeMid-Island Councilman Jim Oddo wants to make it more difficult for candidates seeking elective New York City offices to qualify for matching campaign funds. (Staten Island Advance)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- After failing to get a single colleague to co-sponsor a bill to change the matching-fund program of the city Campaign Finance Board, City Councilman James Oddo now wants to make it tougher for candidates to qualify for matching funds.

Candidates who want to take advantage of the city's 6-to-1 matching fund program currently must raise a minimum of $5,000 from at least 75 donors who live in the district in which they are running.

Oddo's legislation would raise those thresholds to $10,000 and 150 contributors.

Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn) said the current threshold is too low and that many of those who ran for Council in 2009 got matching funds even though they received only a "minuscule" number of votes.

'THE DIRTY DOZEN'

Calling them "the Dirty Dozen," Oddo said that the candidates got a total of $900,000 in matching funds but only got an average of 6 percent of the primary vote. They spent an average of $132.16 per vote, he said.

"They were not bona fide candidates," said Oddo. "Just because some fringe candidates, with no grass roots support in the community, decide to spend their summer vacations running for office, it does not mean taxpayers should be forced to underwrite their personal flights of fancy."

Among the dozen candidates cited by Oddo as examples was Rajiv Gowda, who ran for the North Shore Council seat.

Gowda did not return a phone call seeking comment.

Oddo a few weeks ago pushed legislation that would have lowered the matching fund ratio to 2-to-1 whenever the city had a budget deficit of $2 billion or more.

Oddo said that public financing costs the city too much money and had not changed the overall left-leaning makeup of the Council.

But the bill died because Oddo couldn't get any other Council members to sign on.

Oddo said he was "disappointed but not shocked" by that turn of events, but said that defeat could "pave the way to actually getting traction on this new bill."

But the CFB said that public financing encourages candidates to do more low-dollar fundraising in their communities.

"To receive matching funds, candidates must first show they have community support by raising a number of small contributions from their neighbors," said CFB spokesman Eric Friedman. "While the right number may be subject to discussion, increasing the requirements could compel more candidates to spend more time gathering support in their districts."